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Archive for the ‘Quilting Friends’ Category

That Was Fun!

Monday, August 11th, 2014

paigeslide

We had some precious bonding time with that adorable child. She is beautiful, charming, mischievous and the epitome of the strong willed child. She loves being in the center of the action and insinuating herself into whatever conversation is going on around her. Walking back from dinner one night, she kept trying to get our attention by saying, “Hey, I’m here!” She thought the six adults were ignoring, as we chatted on our walk back to the house.

A couple more pics of her – one afternoon, she dressed herself up in her boots, backpack and hat, ready for a hike. So we marched around, singing, I love to go awandering!

2014-08-08 18.24.05

She eats like a farmer. She loves veggies and fish is her favorite protein.

paigeatbrunch

I don’t know how the three of them manage their crazy life. Jayme is currently spending a month in a trial residency program, learning what it will be like next year. She is working in the neonatal intensive care unit at SF General, which is walking distance from their house. She puts in 12 hours on most days, with one day off. She is taking fewer days off early in the month so that she can come to Bodega Bay on Labor Day week-end to help celebrate our 50th anniversary.

While we were there, we stayed at a flat on their street, house sitting and cat sitting for their friends. The cat, Alice, is 18 years old and requires meds morning and night. She was very shy until our last day, when she finally warmed up to me.

alice

I was finally able to snag a copy of my prolific daughter, Lisa’s, new book, Art, Inc., in which she interviews successful artists and the ins and outs of the business side of being an artist.

artinc

I love this dedication!

artincdedication

On Saturday afternoon, Lisa, Clay and I went to the American Craft Council show at Fort Mason. Here I am with one of my brilliant daughters.

meandlisa8-2014

I thought a lot of the work was very pedestrian and some was downright bad. I did see lots of gorgeous, but very expensive wearable art that I would have loved to walk off with. I ended up buying this ring which I just love. A silver tape measure!

 

 

newring

 

 

 

I ran into an SDA acquaintance, Lynn Pollard who is dipping paper into indigo and making these lovely prints.

indigopaper

I know I promised more photos of the show, but was not that inspired or I was too busy shmoozing to take photos.

On a sad note, on our drive home this morning, we got a call from Scooter’s vet telling us that he had had some kind of serious episode on his morning walk. He vomited twice and then collapsed and was totally out. The young man who was walking him had to carry him back. She thought it could be a seizure or perhaps he has Addison’s disease, which is not that uncommon in Poodles. I cried most of the drive home, but we got to the vet hospital and he was fine. So he is home with us now and we are waiting for test results to come tomorrow. If it is Addison’s, it can be treated with prednisone and monthly shots.

scooter8-11-14

Tomorrow, I am going to the convention center to help set up the SAQA booth at Quilt Knit Stitch, the new Quilts, Inc show debuting later this week. It is going to be a busy week. I am looking forward to having Kristin LaFlamme, my art quilt daughter, come to spend the rest of the week with us on Wednesday. She has been staying with Terry Grant and visiting her Mom in Eugene.

 

Monday Creative Blog Tour

Monday, July 14th, 2014

Rayna Gilman tagged me to participate in this tour around to discover how others create.

What am I working on?

Right now, I am finishing up two large quilts that will be entered in my local fiberarts guild upcoming show, What’s Blue to You? I have to do the mundane work of sleeves and labels and traveling bags, just in case they get in.

I went off on a bit of a tangent with my two pieces. When I was a child, my grandmother used the term sky blue pink quite often – simetimes to describe the colors in the sky and sometimes just for fun. I had several pieces of fabric that had been snow dyed and dyed in a class I took with Judy Robinson that reminded me of sky blue pink. I made a collage of them and made a piece of hand stitched cheesecloth the centerpiece. It seemed unfinished until I added some fused flying geese. It is called Flight Through Sky Blue Pink.

FlightThruskybluepinkweb

Here is a detail of the cheesecloth and flying geese.

skybluepinkdetail

 

The other is an enlargement of my Picasso Woman. I made an etching of this years ago. Recreating her in this large format was a major undertaking. I dyed blue fabric and printed blue fabric with copper highlights for her hair. She is now Blue Picasso Woman.

BluePicassoWoman_web
These are both quite large – 2 ft by 5 ft.
How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Since the work I do comes out of my crazy brain, I hope it is unique. I rarely use commercial fabric. I start with a blank slate of white fabric and then paint, print or dye to create what I want. Some times I create fabric for a piece and sometimes, a piece of dyed fabric tells me what it wants to be. I do not do much piecing. I love the freedom of fusing fabric. It is much freer and more painterly that when pieced – at least for me.

Why do I write/create what I do?

I recently went through downsizing and moving to a condo. I had to give up studio work during that time – about 6 months. When I got set up in my new studio and sewing area at our home, I was so happy. It made me realize how critical a creative life is to my well-being. I love fabric. I love how I can manipulate it, add new surfaces to it and stitch on it.

How does your writing/creative process work?

I often work on projects in what seems like a last minute kind of way. But I do a lot of my process work in my head, thinking about it on walks, when falling asleep and when waking up. I sometimes make sketches, but more often than not, I love just throwing fabric at the design wall, shifting and folding as I come up with a composition.

I recently wrote a new artist statement. In part, it says:

I spend my day observing and photographing the sublime and the quirky scenes around me — a shadow on the deck, a group of trees, the graffiti on a building, architectural details or the juxtaposition of shapes. These scenes become inspiration for the textile art that I create. I distill the scene down to the essential elements, often in abstract form. I love the serendipity of transforming a piece of fabric with paint or dye and using the resulting creations in my textile art.

I have tagged 2 artists for next Monday’s Creative Blog Tour.

Helen Conway was one of the Twelves in the 12 x12 collaboration. I have so enjoyed watching her growth as an artist. I think you will enjoy visiting her blog.

Susan Lenz is one of the most prolific fiber artists that I know. I was honored to be part of one of her past installations about choices we make.

I will try to remind you to visit these blogs next Monday.

Life in the Fast Lane

Thursday, July 10th, 2014

skybluepinkstotchdetail

My life is full, fun and fantastic, but time gets away from me. The main reason I am a bit distracted this week is the visit from my two Oakland girls, Lisa and Clay and they brought Wilfredo!

wilfredo

Four adults and two dogs are getting along just fine in our condo. My son in law, Jack, has named it The Congdo! We have had such a good time with them, and they love our neighborhood. This week, Lisa is participating in an ICON conference and tonight is a meet and greet at the Portland Art Museum. She has her books to and some prints of her work to sell and examples of all the work she does. Saturday, she is doing a workshop session on the business of illustration.

Every one gathered here for the 4th of July. We had great food and it was fun to have every one here. We could watch fireworks from our windows. We had some great salads and kabobs.

5july05

 

5july06

 

These photos were taken by Steph for her 3191 blog.

I have been working frantically to get my two big quilts done for the High Fiber Diet “What’s Blue to You” exhibit.

Lisa took this photo of me with my blue picasso woman and posted it on Instagram.

instagramphoto

I got 760 likes and 72 comments. The comments cracked me up.

This is the Sky Blue Pink quilt as of today. I think it might need something more. I am disappointed with the wonkiness of the bottom. Not sure what to do. The photo at the top is a detail shot of the hand stitching on the cheesecloth section.

skybluepinkdoneyorn

Today was STASH day at Gale’s home. I just love spending a morning with my friends, chatting and eating. Reva brought her vintage t-shirt quilt At our next meeting, we are going to help her tie it. It is to unwieldy to do machine quilting.

revatshirtquilt

So that is a bit of what I have been up to. The other part of my life is so left brained. I am helping SDA with membership and database issues on the website. There have been some problems with work done by some previous employees. We are slowly getting it under control. We have about 4000 members and people join and renew in various ways – phone, mail, and online. I get a real sense of satisfaction as I troubleshoot issues.

 

April Printed Fabric Bee – Art Nouveau

Friday, May 2nd, 2014

printed-bee-collage-Art-Nouveau_sm

Jackie Lams was Queen Bee for April and challenged us with the theme of Art Nouveau. Here are the fabrics that you can add to your own stash. Just go on over to Jackie’s blog and leave a comment or leave a comment of our Printed Fabric Bee Blog.

I had another great day at my dye workshop. Photos will probably have to wait – too tired to do too much blogging tonight.

Making

Thursday, December 12th, 2013

feltpetalpinchushions

I love to make things. I don’t like to do production work, but I love to make a few things to give to friends. That is what I did last night. I followed the directions for Jamie Fingal’s Felted Flower Pincushions. She uses rectangle tins, but I am a devotee of Trader Joe’s dark chocolate triangles that come in round tins. I have been saving the tins to do something like this.

First, I lightly sanded the tins.

sandintchoctine

I used Washi tape to cover the sides. I love this tape with the scissors.

scissorwashitape

Here are some more photos of the ones I gave to my friends in STASH today at our Christmas lunch.

pincushiondetail

pincushiondetail2

I used wool felt that I purchased at JoAnn’s. I threw in a hot wash and the dryer and it crinkles up nicely.

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I then cut one inch strips which I rolled together and stitched with a long needle and perle cotton.

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I am excited because tomorrow I am going to look at a possible studio that I can move into the first week in January!!

I finished sorting and ironing the Japanese fabrics today. I think I will be listing my fabrics for sale over the week-end or early next week.

Thanks for checking in!